​Written for When Christmas Hurts, St Stephen’s Fylingdales, Sunday 14 December 2025.
 
I loved Christmas when I was a child. My dad's beautiful voice reading us The Night before Christmas on Christmas Eve. Stockings in front of the gas fire before breakfast – a Christmas annual in the top and a satsuma, nuts and shiny coins in the bottom. Church and then home, a homemade mince pie, hot ginger wine and presents. It was a good year if I got something to make, something to play with and something to read.
 
As I grew up and got married, my parents encouraged us to build our own Christmas traditions, and these evolved over the years, but we always kept elements of those childhood Christmases.
 
My first marriage crumbled and my dear friend Tim, the sweet, witty, gentle man I had known since we were both in our early twenties became a rock and a shoulder to cry on. Our friendship grew into love, and despite me saying I would never marry again, we got married. We moved to a beautiful and ancient house in Tideswell where Tim opened a second-hand bookshop on the ground floor that became a quiet hub of the village. We built a life new life together. Became part of an amazing group of friends. Acted together. Celebrated birthdays and weddings and Christmases and New Years together.
 
Christmas was a special time for us. We would catch up with family beforehand, and then after sherry and homemade mince pies in the shop with friends and customers on Christmas eve morning, he shut the shop and I closed my office door. We might spend Christmas eve at the pub, or have Christmas lunch with friends, but the rest of the time it was just us. We hunkered down, ate wonderful food, played board games and watched films. And then headed away for New Year to see some of our oldest friends.
 
Tim had type 2 diabetes. Early one February morning, a few months after his 50th birthday, and half a year shy of ten years of marriage, his heart stopped. He was gone in just a moment. In a beautiful moment of quiet and love, Gillian and Simon, the village vicars, anointed him on his way and my friend Fiona swept me into the warmth of her wonderful home.
 
Breaking the news to his parents and to our friends and my family was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. They surrounded me with love and care.
 
At first, I was numb, unbelieving. Hearing the door downstairs rattle in the draft and thinking it was him coming upstairs. Waking up in the night and reaching for him. Dreaming that it was all a mistake and then waking up to remember that it was real. Then the reality sank in and I understood how lonely grief could be, even surrounded by people who loved both of us.
 
As the end of the year approached I started to get all the kind invitations from people not wanting me to be alone at Christmas. But I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything and I declined them as kindly as I could. I had a quiet lunch with friends in the village. I spent time with wonderful online friends from WAY Widowed and Young who understood. I took it gently – there were times I wanted to be with people, and times I wanted to be alone.
 
The second Christmas I knew I needed to do something completely different. I announced it early, before anyone invited me anywhere, and I booked a shepherd's hut in the Lake District. I loaded my Kindle full of books, took a box of simple food, snacks and drinks and a sack of wood for the woodburner, and slept, walked, read, slept some more and took time to heal.
 
Eight years on from Tim's sudden and unexpected death, I struggle with winter. It starts with his birthday on 1 December, and runs through Christmas and New Year until the anniversary of his death on 24 February. Trauma changes us. I am a different person now – not necessarily better or worse, just different.
 
But I have found love again and built new Christmas traditions, threaded through with the old ones, in the beauty and welcome of the North Yorkshire coast. In a house full of dogs and words and art and music and the sound of the sea. There are still elements of Christmas that hurt, but it's no longer raw – it's more of a bittersweet wistfulness wrapped around many happy memories.

Christmas can be hard for some people. This is written for The Widows' Handbook, but there are a lot of reasons why people don't want to be forced to be jolly at Christmas. ​

​Don't push people who don't want to be part of the Christmas spirit - people who have been bereaved, particularly if they were bereaved during the Festive season, don't always want to be part of the jollities.
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• Don't tell them they are a 'stick in the mud' when they don't want to sign up to Secret Santa.
• Don't call them a killjoy when they don't want to wear a Christmas jumper.
• Don't get at them if they don't want to come to a Christmas party.
• Don't make a fuss if they don't put up any decorations.
• Don't tell them to 'just get on with Christmas'.

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Invite people who struggle with Christmas along to things, and if they say no, accept  the answer. Tell them the offer remains open if they change their minds. Accept that they might say yes, and then change their minds. And then give them peace and space.
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Remember that if you invite grieving people, you are inviting their grief too - it's part of who they are. 

Above everything, be kind.

Christmas can be such an emotional time, but it can be even more challenging for widows, because it brings up a lot of memories, happy or sad. As with so many things about being a widow, there is no right or wrong. No rules. Do what you need to do. And do it as one moment, one step, one breath at a time.

Avoid the hype
Christmas is everywhere, and you can cut down your exposure to it by using ad blockers online, unsubscribing from marketing emails, watching DVDs, streaming services or BBC to avoid ads, listening to albums, podcasts, spoken word radio such as Radio 4, Radio 4 Extra or Radio 5 Live or music streaming services to avoid Christmas music on the radio, or recording live TV so you can fast-forward through ads. Shop online (at independent shops if possible) to avoid Christmas fluff, furbelows, jumpers, tinsel and endlessly looping Christmas music. 

Taking the last couple of days off work before Christmas can get you out of all the Christmas talk.

Give yourself permission
Give yourself permission to laugh, cry, go out, stay in, or go to things and leave early. And whatever you plan to do, you are totally allowed to change your mind.

Say no
Don't do anything you don't want to. Fib if you need to, but just say no. You don't have to go to the party, wear the jumper, or get involved in the Secret Santa if you don't want to. 

Announce your intentions early
The first year I decided to spend Christmas afternoon with friends. The second, I headed off to a shepherd's hut in the Lake District. Both years I told my family early, to stop the well-intentioned invitations. I love my family, and I love spending time with them, but I just didn't want to be part of a family Christmas without Tim.

Be aware that things can get overwhelming
If you are part of a big celebration, it can get too much sometimes. Take a breath, try grounding techniques, r find a quiet corner for a moment, or head out into the middle of nowhere and yell at the sky. 

Prepare people
Let people know that you might have tough moments, and let them know whether you want to be fussed, ignored, hugged or distracted. And if you are spending it alone, you can ask someone to check in on you at some point of the day if that would help.

Have an exit strategy
If I go to a big event, I like to arrive early so that I can find places to hide if I need them, and so that I'm not walking into a full and busy room. Driving or having a taxi booked means that you can leave early if you want to – taxis can always be rescheduled if you find you are having fun. 

Ignore Christmas completely
It's allowed. Buy nice non-Christmas food, stock up on non-Christmas films, binge on box sets. Shut the door on Christmas Eve and ignore the world, and then emerge on Boxing Day. Switching off social media can help you to keep Christmas away too.

Don't give in to pressure from others
Spending Christmas alone, with friends, with strangers, working, volunteering, whatever – if it's what you want to do, then just do it. Don't feel that you have to fit in.

Volunteer
Volunteer if you want to, but don't do it because you feel you ought to.

Create new memories
Do something totally different. I have amazing memories of the year I went and stayed in a shepherd's hut. I stocked up on goodies, stacked my Kindle full of books, saw a friend for Christmas lunch, but for the rest of the time I looked at the view, pottered around, ate my body weight in chocolate, and slept. You can have a tradition of not having a tradition.

Buy yourself something nice
A big present, a little present – it doesn't matter what it is, but have something special just for you on Christmas Day. You can say it's from you, or from your partner, or from your cat. Whatever you want.

Enjoy it
You are allowed to enjoy whatever it is that you are doing. Don't feel guilty.
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Make plans
It might be a good idea to have some plans made, otherwise you might just drift and feel worse. But don't plan so much that you feel guilty about not doing it all. Stock up on the food you need, decorate the house and tree if you want to, plan to catch up on some hobbies or some reading, go for a walk, pamper yourself with a long bath. Whatever you really fancy that you don't normally have time to do.

​Updated 20 November 2025.